Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (1954-) was the Deputy Chairman of the Popular Mobilization Forces of Iraq and their field commander during the Iraqi Civil War.

Biography
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was born in 1954 in Basra, Iraq, and he finished studies as an engineer in 1977 before joining the banned Islamic Dawa Party under Saddam Hussein's rule. He set up a camp of Iraqi dissidents in Ahvaz, Iran, and in response to the United States and France's support of Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, al-Muhandis was one of the planners of the 1983 Kuwait bmbings against US and French embassies. In 2003, he returned to Iraq after the USA overthrew Saddam, and he was a security adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. In 2005, he was elected as the representative of Babil Governorate in the Iraqi Parliament, but in 2007, after the USA discovered his background, they raised concerns. In June 2014, he became the Deputy Chairman and field commander of the Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Forces during the Iraqi Civil War, leading them in the fight against the Islamic State and the Second Battle of Tikrit.